The 78-year-old Mann and her 89-year-old husband live on $2,100 a month in pension cheques, which she said isn’t nearly enough to pay for essentials, including rent, groceries, phone, clothing and dental care.

“It’s not enough,” said Mann, who, according to a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) released Thursday, is among a growing number of seniors living close to the poverty line. “My husband’s in the hospital and unable to stand or get up and we need help from the nurses and staff. It (our income) is very tight.”

The CCPA report concluded that seniors’ poverty rose from a low of 2.2 per cent in 1996 to 12.7 per cent in 2014 (the most recent year data is available) — and that many more seniors have incomes just above the poverty line.

It concluded that a total of 96,000 seniors were living in poverty in 2014.

Mann, who speaks six languages and is an active volunteer, has diabetes and other health problems and her husband’s poor health requires a great deal of care.

Jagjit said many of their needs, including dentures and vision care, aren’t covered by Medicare.

According to the CCPA report, Poverty and Inequality Among British Columbia’s Seniors, half of B.C. seniors live on $25,000 a year or less, with single women at the highest risk.

It said the rise is mainly due to the 28 per cent of seniors living alone, with one in three B.C. senior women living alone being poor in 2014 (33.8 per cent) compared with 22.5 per cent of senior men.

The report concluded that the higher risk of poverty for women is driven by gender inequality in the job market, which translates into unequal pension income in old age.

The report, which uses Statistics Canada data, said that the typical senior woman receives 21-per-cent less income from the Canada Pension Plan than the typical man, and that women are also less likely to have access to private retirement income, including employer-sponsored pensions and RRSPs.

“We often see stories that pit generations against one another — with seniors described as a homogeneous group of well-off retirees,” said lead author Iglika Ivanova, an economist at the CCPA-B.C. “Our research shows this isn’t the case. While B.C. seniors are doing OK on average, looking only at the averages misses the big picture of income and wealth inequality.”

Ivanova said that while seniors have higher average wealth than working-age families, a closer look reveals that this average is driven up by a wealthy few. The poorest 20 per cent of senior households in Canada had a median wealth of only $15,000 in 2012, while for the top 20 per cent it was over $1.6 million.

“The defining problem we face isn’t about intergenerational inequality, but rather the growing gap between rich and poor that shows up across generations,” said Ivanova.

The report recommends a number of solutions, including a poverty-reduction plan, increased public investment in home and community care, further expansion of the CPP and addressing the gender-wage gap.

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